Sparkie — Mon, 15 May 2000 17:32:00 +0000

Aha, I see.. thanks! I'll be working on it...

Brooke — Mon, 15 May 2000 15:23:00 +0000

I know what you mean about coming into a different part of someone's site, but if you don't have meta tags on your other pages then you are limiting yourself. If you have 10 pages in your site, then someone is ten times more likely to find you, instead of one. Don't worry about them coming to a different page. As long as it's obvious what page they are on, and how they can get to the home page you will be okay!

Brooke

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Providing quality websites for businesses and individuals!
www.cataluna.com

[This message has been edited by Brooke (edited 15 May 2000).]

Sparkie — Fri, 12 May 2000 23:34:00 +0000

There are meta tags only on the index page.. I did that so that someone wouldn't come mistakenly to a different part of my site, and have no idea where they really were.. I hate doing that myself, when I find the results through search engines..so I thought it was better that way. If that's not a good idea, I can surely change it.

I will lighten up those spirals and center up the site. Thanks!

Sparkie

Justin S — Fri, 12 May 2000 22:24:00 +0000

1) Center the website.

2) Make the menu a little wider and spice it up a bit. Those mouse over pop-ups don't do anything either, so I would get rid of them, 'cause most people know what a portfolio is.

3) Ok logo. I've seen the font before. I would make the swirl thing stand out more, since the text isn't all that spicy.

4) The colors are nice and dark. I don't know. I kinda like it.

5) Why the powered by pawsitronic thing next to the logo? It looks out of place.

6) Why not add some meta tags?

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My name is Nitsuj. I bet you're thinking WTF...

Sparkie — Fri, 12 May 2000 18:34:00 +0000

As I said, I'm straying away from 'normal' website design, so I figured on getting some harsher critiques here. I'm looking into changing the text links to graphical ones, as well as lightening the text and some of the graphics I already have.

I'm not going to delve into the 'lose that cheap clipart' reference, as this forum topic is specifically to help me learn from others' constructive criticism, and not to fire useless comments at one another.

The layout is going to be messy if you're browsing at 1024x resolution, and I'm working on catering to that audience too.

Thanks to everyone who has submitted their ideas and suggestions! I really do appreciate it.

Sparkie

Megan — Fri, 12 May 2000 14:34:00 +0000

THis doesn't look like a designer site to me, and that's not because of the colours. The layout is messy and disorganized, that's the main problem. There are too many things competing for the viewers attention, which makes it hard to focus on anything.

Take a look at this http://www.flipdesign.com/intro.html - a good example of a designers site done on black with citrus colours. Notice how there isn't a lot of text there to confuse the viewer. It's very straightforward and simple, yet the patterns and textures in the design make it interesting.

I think it would be a good idea to use more table backgrounds to give your site some structure. I like the idea that FLIP used where they set the site area inside a small table in the centre of the page on top of the black background. Black backgrounds tend to look unprofessional, so you have to be careful with them. When I first saw this site it reminded me of some sort of carribbean party. Reading from a black background can be hard on the eyes too.

It would be a good idea, as johnny suggested, to use graphics for your navigation. Use the short words you've got on the bottom navbar - navbars with short, intuitive headings are much more attractive and useful than long wordy links.

Oh, and lose that cheap clip-art.

Sparkie — Fri, 12 May 2000 12:18:00 +0000

Thanks everyone for your comments

I'm trying to go for that look that will make my site stand out against the normal "white-blue" of the website world. I guess I did that successfully.. but I will try to lighten up the colors and images to see if that helps the browsability =) Thanks again.
Sparkie

johnnyboy — Fri, 12 May 2000 09:53:00 +0000

Sparkie,

It was hard to tell what the blue swirls were against such a dark background.
That funky yellow sploch roll-over effect is wierd too.
I do like the text boxes that appear when I roll-over the links on the left.
If I were you, I would make the links on the left into graphic buttons and not just text links.
If you're going to go with a fixed-width table, you should center it, because at higher resolutions, there is too much black space on the right.
Your form on http://www.pawsitronic.com/form2.html needs some alignment. Too hard to read when it's like that.

John

jili1 — Fri, 12 May 2000 01:45:00 +0000

Not one of the experts here but I liked it - at first the colors caught me a little off guard, yellow, orange, black - seemed strange next to the other sites I have seen that offer this service because they have a more conservative graphic design however, I believe I like it....and your business references look good.

Brooke — Thu, 11 May 2000 22:12:00 +0000

Let me start by saying overall I think that it looks really sharp. I like the logo, the hovers, and the colors.

Here are some comments:
"your one stop web design solution" looks too much like a banner ad in my opinion. I didn't even look at until I had been at your site for awhile because I thought it was an ad.

Your quick mark page needs some work. It should keep the same feel as the rest of the site. I also think that the main page and request form buttons look too much like bar codes when turned to the side that way. This page just feels a bit out of place.

I do like the colors in the logo and in the navigation, but all that yellow text really hurts my eyes and feels dark. Try using white to see how that would look. The yellow is straining.

That's all I have right now. Good job! I really like it a lot!

Brooke

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Providing quality websites for businesses and individuals!
www.cataluna.com